Going into the playoffs, you could kind of group teams into 3 categories: the old guard (Cloud9 and Team Solo Mid), the re-vamped teams (Echo Fox and Team Liquid), and the brand new teams (100 Thieves and Clutch Gaming). In the NA LCS history, there has only been 3 winners: Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, and Team Solo Mid. Counter Logic Gaming could not come back from their horrendous mid-season losing streak and finished in 7th place. Cloud9 had an interesting season with a super hot start and slowly cooling off to finish in 5th place. They faced off against Team Liquid, who've had been up and down all season, showing very little consistency. Team Liquid were slightly favoured going into this match as Cloud9 just didn't seem to have a good grasp of this meta. The series may have ended in a 3-0 sweep for Team Liquid, but Cloud9 had leads in all 3 games, so it was a lot closer than the score says. Team Liquid played an amazing mid game, controlling the pace of the game and running Cloud9 all over the map. In the second quarterfinals, Team Solo Mid seemed to be at least a 90/10 favourites against Clutch Gaming. They were on a hot streak and everything seemed to be clicking at the right time, allowing them to sneak into 3rd place. They took Game 1 and everything was going as planned until they let Clutch Gaming draft Thresh 3 games in a row and history was broken. Team Solo Mid would not make it to finals or even semifinals this split and with all of the old guard officially eliminated, it was guaranteed that a new champion would be crowned in 2018 Spring Split. You have Echo Fox vs Team Liquid and 100 Thieves vs Clutch Gaming. All of these teams will play in Miami and because of the dynamic reseeding, one of the brand new franchises will make it to the finals and have a chance at winning a championship in their 1st season ever.
Opmerkingen